


For Once

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Fictober 2019 [3]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23569549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Julian faces a dilemma with Reyja.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Character(s)
Series: Fictober 2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696495
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	For Once

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fictober prompt: Can you stay?

For once, he climbs slowly out of sleep. For once, the sun has at least partially risen and begun to light the world when his eyes flicker open to the close quarters of Mazelinka’s bedroom. For once, he feels almost half rested, his limbs loose and heavy like stones; the memory of warm golden soup on his lips ghosts through his mind to tell him why.

But the soft stomach on which his head has been pillowed is new. Beautifully new. Achingly new. All of her is new, and yet seems so familiar, so comfortable. For once, he feels like he could almost stand to keep someone close.

Almost.

Carefully, Julian slides to the foot of the bed and rises, desperate not to wake her again. She shifts at the loss of his weight against her, murmuring too softly for him to hear, and his heart jumps to his throat. But she just turns onto her side and settles into the mattress with a sleepy sigh.

Julian exhales with her. He has to tread so lightly and for once, he doesn’t want to. _What is it about the magicians in this city,_ he asks himself as he pauses near the curtain separating the bedroom from the rest of the house, _that makes me lose my mind?_

But she isn’t Asra. She’s not a blade to press against his palm just to watch the inevitable wound bleed, but balm for muscles he could no longer tell were sore, having worked them into such knots. She is warm and plush, though her tongue is sharp and her mind sharper, and the shape she makes under Mazelinka’s finest sheet is tempting, a feast to a starving man, the shore to a marooned sailor. _  
_

No. Too much is at stake. He had been weak before, and it led to this mess. If he leaves now, if he runs again, perhaps she’ll awaken and think him just a dream. The eel bite, the garden, all of it. Of course, opening her eyes to a strange room would provide strong evidence to the contrary, but at least he would be away. Out of her life. Just a dream. Just a bad dream.

 _Or a good one?_

Julian’s hands flex. It’s been many years since he had a good dream. Otherwise he thinks she might be the perfect example. But his subconscious would never be so kind as to create someone like her. Not for him.

Oh, he wants to touch her, to never stop touching her. The kisses they shared last night had been too short and too few. If he hadn’t sworn to be a gentleman, they may not have slept at all. As it was, the way she molded into his side, one leg intertwined with his and his arm holding her tight, he had awoken hard several times, excited by the scent of her, the weight of her thigh, the unconscious curl of her fingers through the hair on his chest. She told him she’d never been with anyone, yet she slept wrapped around him like she belonged there. Julian shivers, his eye roving her form in the dawn light. _Does_ _she…?_

Suddenly, her hand moves, closing into a fist around nothing, and she mumbles into the pillow. Julian startles and takes a step back, startling again when his shoulders brush against the divider curtain. She grunts, annoyed, and he understands with a flash of fear: _she’s looking for me. Already, she’s looking for me._

He can’t stay here. He can’t do this. He’s dangerous, he’s a murderer, he's… he's… he’ll hurt her. He will absolutely hurt her. He knows this as certainly as he knows his own name. But if she really is reaching for him in her sleep, what kind of man would he be if he ran out on her without an explanation? Surely, just this once he can break his own rule. Just for her.

Julian can feel his resolve weakening as he stares at her. She looks so small, so alone in Mazelinka’s bed. But there is a fire, fierce and cruel and frightening, fanning panic through his mind. _Go look at the Lazaret again, you fool. That’s your legacy. That’s what you have to offer her. Is that what she deserves, an island of the dead? A monument to your failure?_

He turns away. There are tears threatening to spill over, biting at the backs of his eyes, but he swallows them down. He can’t risk waking her now. Mazelinka has already left for the day, shuffling out to the forest to gather herbs that can only be picked by dawnlight. But she left his things in a pile by the door, bless her, and he sweeps into his long black coat with a heavy heart. His boots make too much noise on the cobblestone floor, so he tucks them under his arm and crosses to the window, forcing himself not to look back at the figure just visible behind the curtain. He almost makes it, too.

“Julian…”

It’s quiet, almost a sigh. Any other time of day, he wouldn’t have heard it. Only now, in the stillness of early morning, when the city seems to be frozen as the sun hauls itself upright, does her voice reach across the room and coil around his stomach like a tentacle, squeezing tight. She isn’t awake. He can tell by her deep, even breaths. He could go back to her now and she would never know. He could give in to the tantalizing dream her sleeping form represents. He could stay, for once, instead of run. He could admit what he already knows to be true: He loves her. He loves her. He loves her.

But he can’t. The Lazaret’s shadow stretches far, Lucio’s farther. He will not be the red that stains her. He will not be the blade for her to cut herself against, the way Asra was for him. What is one man’s love, in the face of what that man has done?

He knows he’ll be back. This isn’t the end yet. At least he can give her that much. Answers. He won’t leave her with the same nagging emptiness that’s hounded him for the past three years. Whatever else he’s guilty of, he won’t add that to his ledger. She brings out the best in him, he thinks with a grimace. _Too little, too late._

Julian allows himself one more look back, lingering on the curves and swells of her body under the sheet before he vaults onto the windowsill. “I’m so sorry, Reyja,” he breathes. “So sorry.” His stomach flutters, guilt twisting around itself, a writhing mass of octopus arms. And with a swirl of his coat, like a cloud of ink, he’s gone.


End file.
